Imperial Guard Tactics: Colonel Iron Hand Straken

Ok so lets talk about someone that I am big fan of, the Colonel, Iron Hand Straken.  He is the commander of the Catachan II and an all around badass.  The IG have few combat characters that can actually kick ass, but the Colonel is one of them.  Now I am a fan of good ole creed and he is my usual commander for my army, but straken is in many ways the opposite of creed, he punches stuff till its dead and works out the tactics along the way.  He gets in there and wins his battles with his guns and fists.  Now Creed is a great choice for IG, but he really does lack in any sort of fighting capability in any way and unfortunately the best you can hope for is for him to hid in his coat.  Now this is where the Colonel comes in, he has no coat to hide in.

Holiday Progress: New Fortications for IG & Painted Models

Happy holidays everyone!  I hope you all had a good week, whether or not you celebrate any of the holidays or not.  I had a great time with family and it was refreshing to get away from blogging a 40k in general for a week.  It was good to relax and not worry about getting things painted or preparing for the next game.  But now back to the hobby and I am certainly happy.  I got what I was hoping for and that was a significant portion of the Wall of Martyrs with two trench sections and one heavy weapon section.  I also have the bunker on order so I should have that before the end of the week.

Happy Holidays and Thank You

Hello everyone, I want to wish you all merry Christmas and happy holidays.  I am taking off today to visit my family for the holidays so posting will decline dramatically for the next week.  I will do a few posts if I find the time but it is going to be busy for the next week.  I over promised in delivering tactics articles, I did not expect so much time to be taken up preparing for my trip but thats ok, I'm sure you all will survive a few weeks, its not like tyranids are coming out or anything.  I want to thank everyone that reads and comments on this blog, it is an awesome experience to have different people from around the world sharing in the same hobby and enjoying the Imperial Guard.

Review Forge World Escalation: The Other Imperial Guard Super Heavies

By request I will be going over the other super heavies of the Imperial Guard.  These are the so called "pocket" super heavies as they are cheaper, smaller, and less powerful versions of their bigger baneblade brothers.  Key note here if you have the books, structure points are worth 3 HPs apiece.   I actually like a lot of these and think if you are going the super heavy route, this is a great place to look.  FW isn't cheap but they make some awesome models and make great centerpieces.  The other thing is that since most of these have about 6 HPs compared to the standard 9 for Baneblades, they are easier to kill and will be an easier pill for your friends to swallow and you won't feel as bad bringing one.

Escalation Review: Quick One for Imperial Guard

Ok so I have gone over Escalation a few times, but I haven't really reviewed it either.  Not going to go through the whole book, but I will go over what is important for the Imperial Guard.  Now see my previous post on FW PDF update if you want to know a little more about all the additions to escalation.  So just in this book, IG come out the best with just about every baneblade variant where other armies only have one or two.  Now the FW update adds a lot more so its not so lopsided.  But There are a lot of choices here for IG if you are looking for some massive firepower.  Now few things to go over first.  One if you take one, your opponent gets +1 to his sieze roll and can roll on the lords of war warlord trait table.  Also he gets a VP for every 3 HPs knocked off your super heavy.  So you have to watch out as there are some decent disadvantages to taking one.  2 super heavy vehicles are not affected by results on the damage table, they just keep on going and lose one HP from the pen, an explodes just causes D3 HPs damage in addition to the one from the pen. 

The Competitive Cop-Out

One thing that bothers me about certain competitive players and the way they play at the competitive level is how they complain about the OP armies, and then immediately take those armies, and then justify it by stating that well I'm only taking it because its the only way to stay competitive.  That BS, that's excusing lack of skill for good army choice.  I'm sorry, the good players that compete that I know, win with all the armies that they play.  What bothers me more about this attitude is that these usually are the same people complaining about how boring it is playing the same armies.  Well guess what, it starts with you, play a different army, and you know what, maybe other people will play different ones too. 

40k Current Events: That Escalated Quickly

More changes happened over the weekend.  If you are not aware, Forge World released the Escalation approved PDF this weekend found here.  Here is the short of it.  All super heavies can be taken as a lords of war in escalation.  This is not as horrible as it seems, it adds all the xenos armies stuff, granted their are some ridiculous choices (manta).  The escalation book, more aptly called codex: Baneblade w/a few other super heavies, lacks a lot of choices for other armies besides Imperial Guard.  So yeah you can take a reaver, and they are awesome, but really what it means is all the little things like the eldar Lynx, the Malcador tanks, the DE vehicle can come to the fight as well.  These guys are powerful sure, but they are much less on the scale as say a revenant. 

Surviving the D: Options For Beating the New Bigs Boys of 40K

Since superheavies are the new big boys and D weapons the biggest baddies of them all, you are going to probably have to deal with them.  That's ok, the dirty D is not the end of all that is good in 40k.  As Imperial Guard, we actually have a lot of great options to counter Super Heavies in general.  Now I know I don't like to publish lists online, but I think this is one of those times for an exception, granted the following won't be too detailed so you can fill in the blanks.  Also this will combine survivability with offensive power as well, as its great and all to be able to kill the titan, you need to actually survive to shoot it also. 

This Whole Blog Thing

So first off I want to thank everyone that has visited, commented, and sent anything.  I only recently got into this blog thing I have to say it has been something that I have come to enjoy.  Its been only a few months but I have gone from just talking to myself to actually having conversations with some of you out there.  This is probably the thing I enjoy the most about this.  Despite what I may say, I am not the keeper of all knowledge, and hearing others thoughts and ideas is awesome and its great to be able to share the knowledge, whether someone learns something on this blog, or I learn it from one of you.  Now where is this blog going?

Review: Stronghold Assault

Ok I know I promised some advanced infantry tactics articles, but I have not had any time to take pictures this week, work and other errands taking up time right now.  Have no fear, they will come, probably next week or maybe even by this weekend.  So I am going to go more in depth in to Stronghold Assault, ie fortifications part II.  I have made it clear that I don't think the new releases are a big deal and 40k is fine and TO are certainly within their rights to decide on how to organize their games.  I don't think comp or banning is necessary.  I do really like stronghold and I really think its going to affect this game in the long run far more than super heavies will.  Here  is why, its cost effective, in points and money.  You don't have to drop anywhere near as much money as you would on most superheavies.  Yes if you go all in and get a massive fortification setup you will be out some money.  But most options at the base are going to get you out 50 bucks or so.  Or some have no models and you can make them as cheap as you want too!  So more people can bring these and their effects on the game as a whole will be greater.

The Players That Make the Game: A Word on Power Gamers, Fluff Bunnies and How They Make The Game

So since everyone is going to town on escalation and the community seems to be splitting either for or against Escalation(Stronghold Assault seems to have been accepted with little question or fan fare) I want to take a step back and talk about the community as I see it, with a look at the online community as well as the "regular" community.  For me I am a recent addition to the online community and while I do enjoy trolling blogs and seeing what people are doing, there is definitely an interesting difference between the community on and off line.  Views are far more extreme for one, I will say that.  But its not just that simple.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Tau Empire 1850 pts

Alright got a game in this weekend, tweaked my army a little bit, wanted to see how it would do minus a CCS squad and add weapons and gear across the army to compensate.  Three of the vet squads have plasma guns now, took an astropath, and a few other things for my platoon and the Inquisitor.  Nothing too major just the lots of little things that make a big difference.  So I faced off against one of the regular gamers against his Tau army.  He does not play the typical Tau list and I really like his and think a lot of Tau players are missing out with some of the great options in the book by going with the "standard" build.  So he had commander batman, no iridium armor, two riptides, a crisis team, two fire warrior squads (9-12ish), two kroot squads with 3x krootox and hounds, a large drone squad with markerlights, two pathfinders in devilfish's with their special drones, and a sniper drone team with three controllers and three sniper drones.  We played dawn of war deployment, the scouring, night fighting first turn, I won the roll of and deployed first.

Escalation and Stronghold Assault: The Game and The Imperial Guard

OK, things have been changing rapidly over the last month or so.  The latest changes have included formations, Inquisition mini codex, and now Super heavies and more Fortifications.  Now a lot of people are mulling this over and I am certainly one of them.  I have always tried to take the stance of play to have fun and the more options are better.  But the latest releases have seen the FoC circumvented significantly with Inq and Formations, and the balance shifted with D weapons in Escalation and Stronghold.  I will admit that D weapons are a bit much and I don't know whether they were really needed.  A while back when rumors were coming around that IG might get a baneblade, I took the stance against this, saying it was not necessary and superheavies should stay in Apoc where they belong.  Well they are here to stay now.  What are you going to do?

How To Win at Everything Forever

Ahaha I have discovered the secret.  If you have been searching for the secrets of victory, I have discovered it.  Behold the revenant titan and all its D weapon glory!

The Escalation of 40k and Random Randomness

So its the end of the week and its been an interesting one.  Afraid not much hobby stuff has gotten done.  I have a bastion and weapons that need painting but oh well.  The holidays are coming shortly and all that is required for that has demanded time this week, combined with work meant I could do little more than write a few articles.

Seeing that and I am a little tuckered out from tactical writing, lets have a little fun. 40k is awesome, and by 40k I mean the universe as a whole, not just the game system(which I like too).  I love the darkness and far more serious nature of it and though it is certainly not "original" it is it's own thing and has been for a while and grown into what we have today.  And if you love star wars well your emperor is false and prepare for the emperor's mercy :). 

Imperial Guard Infantry Tactics: The Bloody Infantry PT3

So its on to the next part on our march through the Imperial Guard Troops and we have finally made it to the humble Infantry Platoon.  These are the back bone of many a IG Regiment and will be what most will be relying on to carry the day.  I think that the Infantry Platoon is hands down the best single troops choice in the entire game.  It has the advantage of large hordes, multiple squads, heavy weapons, special weapons, and conscripts.  The sheer number of models you can field in one troop choice is staggering.  You can have 137 models in a single troops choice (more if add in all the commissars too), that is just mind boggling in the amount of men you can bring to the field.  Added to the fact that this is all damn cheap, being 880 pts for all of this (no upgrades).  This means if you are looking to field endless waves of guardsmen, you have found what you are looking for.  The other wonderful bonuses to this is that you treat it as a single unit in regards to deployment and reserves.  So you can in theory have a seriously large flanking force for your opponent to deal with.  The other rule that is important is combined squads, which is sort of the reverse of combat squads for SM, you can combine infantry squads together at the start of the game, they then act as single unit.  This is where the often mentioned blob squad comes from. Now for this one I am going to break it down by the individual units within the platoon and then go over unit tactics and special characters.

Please not this is a longer read, I got a little more in depth than I planned.

Digital Releases and The Effect on The Game

Ok so time to jump on the bandwagon and talk about GWs recent releases that started this month.  Yeah I know everyone is talking about these (not just the one above) and I'm certainly not going to be spouting anything revelatory to you.  But I need a little more time to work on the next Troops Tactics article and this is a good filler and I happen to have an opinion on it so why not.

Imperial Guard Tactics: The Bloody Infantry PT2

Alright so got through the first part and now its time to keep on going.  This time the focus is going to be on veterans, some of my favorite guardsmen.  These guys are hands down your most versatile unit that you can field in terms of war gear and options to make them fit any role.  They do have some disadvantages though in that you can only ever bring ten, no more no less, and they do not benefit from the platoon command structure.  It would be great if the new codex would allow 0-1 veteran squads per platoon, and still allow them to be taken on their own of course.  But their are ways to work around that which I will talk about later.  The last thing that limits them is that you can only take 6 squads of them (Yes I said only), which limits their effectiveness.  The fact of the matter is that they are still guardsmen and 60 guardsmen are not that hard to kill.  Suffice it to say that veterans really only downsides are minor compared to their utility. 

Hobby Update: The Inquisitor

So I have finally got my inquisitor painted and based.  He is now ready for fighting the enemies of the emperor.  He is my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and that is my custom needle pistol for him.  I wanted him to match the colors of my storm troopers colors so that they would match color scheme wise.  He is certainly not 100% and I will be touching him up for a while but he passes muster at this point.  Sorry I am by no means an expert painter so you will never find the most amazingly painted models here.  Maybe one day.

Imperial Guard Tactics: The Bloody Infantry

Ok so time to go back to tactics and its time to go through the most important part of the Imperial Guard army, and that is the bloody infantry.  These are the guys that win you the games, take your objectives, and die for the emperor.  I will admit I am biased, I love playing infantry guard and I know tread heads see these foot sloggers as a mere unfortunate requirement, but they are more than that.  An all armor army would be nice, but alas the current codex still requires you take infantry.  That being said you have the most flexible and useful troop choices of any codex that I can think of, in terms of gear you can equip them with and unit composition and their playability.  You have three choices: The Platoon, The Veteran Squad, and The Penal Legion Squad.  Now of the three, the one you will see the least is hands down the penal legion squad and its not hard to see why, they have no upgrade options and are dependent on a dice roll for their abilities.  They are far from useless though and I will talk more about them in a sec.  All in all this section is where you will be spending a lot of your money and points on and its where you will bring victory through.  There are so many ways to play with them too that you really are spoilt for choice when it comes to the guard.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Grey Knights 1850pts

Ah and finally the battle was met, after my dry spell I was able to get a game in and try out my new inquisitor and more importantly my servo skulls.  Yes I was playing grey knights again, I know it seems like I play them a lot and I do.  My brother has them, but I wasn't playing him this time.  I played a long time GK player who is usually at the store, he has other armies but his GK are his favorite and that is what he had so that is what I played against.  We played normal table length deployment, big guns never tire, had 4 objectives spread out mostly in the middle, and there was night fighting turn one.  I won the roll off for deployment and going first.

IG Hobby Progress and Some Cool Models

Ok before anyone says hey thats not IG, that is true but he is for my IG army so it counts.  Yep thats my brand spanking new inquisitor, all assembled and primed, ready for some paint.  I don't like the way he holds his sword outstretched in the standard look so I rotated the sword arm to have to look like he is resting it and more focused on the shot than looking cool.  The needle pistol(thats what its supposed to be) is made from a Dark Eldar pistol, the magazine from the boltgun he comes with and a scope from the tactical marine kit.  And a bit of green stuff.  No crazy conversion work, but I really like how it looks, he just seems a little more menacing now and the pistol has the right proportions, the boltgun he comes with just looks too big the way he is holding it.  I plan on painting him the same color scheme as my storm troopers, you can see them in my older post on basing, they are in the pictures there.  A maroon red on black with bronze and other metallic highlights, and go from there.  He should look great when finished and will go well with my Storm Troopers (New Codex please let them be useful).

IG allies and Happy Holidays

First off I want to thank everyone, all your comments and support has been awesome and keeps me doing this blog thing.  Its nice to know that there are others out there that enjoy and believe in the same things when it comes to our hobby.  Though I make it a point not to bring my personal life onto the blog I will make an exception here.  For everyone here in the states I hope you are all having or had a great thanksgiving, no matter where or who you spent it with.  I just got back from visiting my wife's family, long drive but it was a good time.  Good to be back home though and get back to warhammer.  To those of you heathens not in the states, well I hope you all had a great week and things are looking up.

Thoughts on Counts-as

Well today I want to talk about my thoughts on Counts as/proxy, whatever you want to call it.  I know there is some controversy over it and I will admit there is some parts of Counts as that can get me going as well.  But I think counts as can be ok as well, it comes down to why you are doing it and what you are using.  For me this goes back a while, as I have been around the block with 40k and remember a time where the use of models on the board was very loose.  You could bring proxies/counts as as you desired, the age old deodorant land speeder comes to mind, the only thing that mattered was What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG).  That used to be what mattered, WSYIWYG, not if you had the actual model.  Ok your cardboard box with wheels is a leman russ, does it have a battle cannon? Check.  Does it have a lascannon? Check.  Is it about the right size?  Check.  Alright then looks good.  Now adays its not as important, and you know what thats not a bad thing in and of itself

Imperial Guard & Inquisitorial Storm Troopers

Ok so today I want to talk about one of my favorite units in the Imperial Guard, though they are not my favorite on the tabletop despite my desires.  That unit is the ole glory boys, the big toy soldiers, the Storm Troopers (Kasr Kin if you are Cadian).  I love the fluff of these guys, the orphans of the Imperium's wars and selected for a life of service in the elite shock troops of the Imperial Guard, given the best training and equipment the Departmento Munitorum can offer.  Sadly they don't perform so well on the table and I will talk more about that later.  I really want to talk about their fluffyness and the armies I would like to see them in.  The release of the Inquisition codex has also gotten me in a Storm Trooper mood, as I love the look of the Inq STs and have really wanted to do a Inq ST army for a while.  Unfortunately the rules to now have not made that easy.

Imperial Guard Rumors: Steal Legion & Mordians

Latest and greatest from the rumor mill is that the Steel Legion and Mordian Iron Guard will be receiving plastic kits come the new release.  Now I can see the steel legion but the mordians are little out of left field, but I know they have their fans.  I can see this coming to place as steel legion have always been popular and wouldn't need too much to get a plastic kit going for them.  A new infantry squad and an upgrade sprue would be enough for you to get an army going, same for the mordians.  The IG are really hard for GW since they have so many different regiments, and unlike space marines they look drastically different from one to the next.

The Shadow Grows Closer: Fighting the Tyranids

With the shadow growing ever closer, we will be facing the Tyranid menace once again and many guardsmen will die for the emperor to hold back the great devourer.  Tyranids are rumored to be released next month and with it the upsurge of the army being seen in play.  Now the tyranids have been always a unique army, and each new codex brings pretty decent changes to how the army functions which can make it difficult to prepare for.  But there are a few things we can expect to see as well based on the trends of the 6th ed dexs that have been released so far.  Now I have been fighting tyranids for a long time, my buddy that I got into gaming with played them so as you can imagine they are one of the armies that I fought and learned to counter early on.  I know, I'm awesome.  In all seriousness though they are a tough army to beat when wielded correctly.

Hobby Quick Tip: Using Techincal Paints for Basing

Ok so I recently got the Agrellan Earth technical paint and it is actually pretty awesome and you can make some pretty neat bases using it real quick and easy.  As you can kind of see, when it dries it cracks and makes a cool cracked earth look, like a mud flat that dried out or a desert.  If you are unsure what to base your army with or just don't want to do all the gluing then this is a great option.  I know people like to get on GW for how much their stuff is, but look at what they are coming out now with.  The paints over all have improved greatly over the years and continue to expand.   Here is how it looks once its all dried.

The Fall of the Imperial Guard

Or is it just the rise of the Xenos(and other armies) that have contributed to the supposed decline of IG.  First off I don't think the IG have declined at all, the army is still great and more than competitive on its own, even more so with allies.  I think there is a few things going on here that are contributing to this "decline" though.  First is simply that other armies have gotten better, across the board, all the new codex's are competitive, some more so than others (Tau).  What this means is that IG is no longer king of the hill with all the undesirables beneath it.  Now we have to share the table and sharing sucks.  I personally have had to work a little bit harder to win recently, and I like it.  Are the uber net builds hard to beat, yeah and you will struggle against it.  But most people don't play that way, or even have the models to do those builds. 

Hobby Progress and Thoughts on Allies

Well it has been a busy week so far, unfortunately did not get any games in, my buddy had work issues and by that time I was geeking out too much over the Inquisition and how to ally with my IG army to really get in a gaming mood.  I did get a bit of hobby stuff done and as you can see above, I have some servo skulls ready to be painted and added to the army.  I have my inquisitor and all the bits I want on order and can't wait, I am hoping to have them all ready for a game this weekend, but at least I will have models, if not painted.  I really am getting more excited about inquisition the more I read and think about it.  It is such a godsend to IG and in my opinion puts IG back at the top table (though we really didn't leave, just have been sharing it lately IMO).  You can build in CC units, anti-psyker and anti-daemon defenses, awesome weapons and gear (psychotroke grenades :)) and are only limited by the points you want to spend, and the great thing is you don't have to, for less than a primaris psyker you get three servo skulls and prescience, that is really huge.  Anyways on to other hobby stuff

IG and the Inquisition:The Sun is Shining Through the Clouds

Well I have finally had a chance to really go through the codex and I have to say, despite it now being everything I was hoping for, there are some great bright spots to it that make this a great supplement to the IG army.  After sleeping on it I have gotten over that assassins are not in here and have taken a hard look at what it does bring.  First off as I mentioned in my first thoughts last night is that the inquisitor is all you have to take, and he can always be your warlord no matter what.  And you really want him to be, because the warlord table for all the Ordos are fantastic, there is not a single bad choice, just ones that are a little less good.  They all share the first three traits, which boil down to the SM chapter master orbital bombardment, warlord and unit can choose to pass or fail morale checks, roll two dice and choose which you want for reserves, outflank, mysterious objectives and terrain.  In short awesome.  Then you have three specific to each Ordos, Hereticus has preferred enemy(psykers), adamantium will, and infiltrators cannot set up with 24" of your warlord.  Again awesome.  Malleus has preferred enemy(Daemons),  daemons suffer a -1 to invul save (min 6+) if within 12" and it is cumulative, and last is an extra warp charge(not mastery level) if psyker, or adamantium will if not.  Xenos has preferred enemy to xenos races, 6+ invul and make one weapon +1 strength and rending, and Hatred.  So in short no matter what you roll, awesome!

Inquisition: First Thoughts

So I have had a good start to my hobby weekend.  I got a few tanks repainted from my old paint scheme into my new one.  Getting my armored IG regiment ready to fight is no small task, but hopefully by next week it will be all painted and ready for battle.  Hoping for a game tomorrow, but I also have death watch to look forward too, so either way I'm getting some juicy 40K in.  Also I updated the Counter Drop Pod Tactics post, added demonstration photos and a few other things, check it out along with my other tactics articles.

The meat of this is that Inquisition was released a short while ago, and to be honest I am a little underwhelmed.  I was really hoping for more than just henchmen and an inquisitor.  But this does not mean it is horrible. The force org rules make up for the lack of other options.  You can have your normal detachment, allied, and then an inquisitor on top of that, who can be your warlord if you want.  They are cheap base cost, so that is a big plus in that you don't have to spend a lot of points on them, and if you are looking for a psyker, they still end up being not only cheaper than a primaris, but are also better.  Not as good as I would like but saving those few points means more power weapons and krak grenades on your infantry.

Imperial Guard Tactics:Counter Drop pod/Deep Strike Tactics

So this comes as a guest request, and once I got thinking about it, became hard not to want to write about.  So Sjb, here you are as requested, tactics to use  against a Drop Pod/ Deep strike heavy army.  These armies are very hard to face as IG, they are prob one of the best hard counters against the IG, one of the reasons blood angels in 5th did so well against IG.  They bypass the deployment and come down right in front of you and don't allow you time to attrit them down to a manageable number.  They tend to be 3+ drop pods coming down turn one, and bring lots of firepower and can be devastating alpha strike.  However they have a few weaknesses, the first being only half of the drop pods can arrive turn 1, the rest have to wait in reserve.  The other is the fact that they have to commit fully to the drop pod list, spending points on this to make it effective.  This makes it strong, but also means that it is limited in what it brings.  What you will find is these armies have a critical mass they have to achieve, if they don't they peter out and lose quickly.  Now all is not lost, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the drop pod armies strengths and turn it to your advantage.

Funny Hypocrites and Power Gamers

Now don't want the picture to make you think I am hating on Tau, they are just a  good example of some of the things going on in the meta right now.  Now I have recently started listening to lots of different 40k pod casts.  I like hearing the different opinions and subjects they talk about.  However while listening to a few of these I noticed a trend among them.  Firstly they all tend to bemoan the state of the game and the tournament scene, how certain builds are so prevalent among players and tournaments.  Usually its about tau, screamer star, wave serpent spam etc.  Then they also usually talk about what they have been doing in the hobby.  This is where I start to laugh, as these guys who are complaining about those builds, are making them or playing with them themselves.  I just find it funny, and then of course comes the excuse of "well I play in tournaments to win so I have to take it" blah blah blah.  Which in my opinion is an excuse for mental laziness.

New Inquisition, The Imperial Guard, and You

Greetings to all and I hope your week is going well.  Mine is and part of it is because I am a little bit excited about the inquisition codex set to be released this weekend.   I have always wanted to do an inquisitorial army but I am more of an Ordo Xenos guy and the Grey Knights and previous codex's focused too much on killing deamons for my taste. But with this supplement/codex I may finally be able to do my alien hunters.  Now if you are a guard player, you really should be excited about this, as if what the rumors are true, or even close to being true, then there is a lot of gooddies to be had.

Imperial Guard Tactics: Quick Tip Against Tau

I have had a pretty good weekend, no tabletop but got our first game of deathwatch in.  Was a lot of fun and I had a great time being a space wolf.  I am def lucky that we have a good group that meshes well and that we all picked good classes that ended up complementing each other very well.  It was fun, if I haven't already said that.  If you haven't played any of the Fantasy flight RPGs, I seriously recommend that you do.  OK now on to the meat of what I want to talk about.  Something that I am sure you are aware of but I rarely see this taken advantage of is the Tau signature systems.  What I mean by taking advantage of is that a single model purchases the upgrade.  Now that gives the ability to the unit, but like other wargear, banners, etc, when that model that has it dies, the unit loses the ability.

Imperial Guard Tactics: Fighting Eldar

Alright as many are aware, the eldar are up at the top right now.  They can bring some great units to the field and when combined with their special rules and psychic powers, can be very powerful.  Fear not though, the IG still has the tools to take this army apart and there are some strong units that can counter what the eldar bring to the table.  Also what is key is understanding how the army functions and what to target to remove their force multipliers.  The eldar continue the trend of synergy that 6th has brought about and they are no different from Tau, Deamons, CSM, and DA.  Once you take apart their force multipliers, they become just a regular non MEQ army with ok shooting.

40K Hobby: Soul Drinkers!!

Alright, so I know I am a IG player, and that is what this blog is mostly about.  But like just about everyone in the hobby, I have a place in my heart for Space Marines.  One of my favorites stories in 40k is that of the Soul Drinkers chapter.  I love how it skirts the line, at once they deny the Imperium and Chaos, taking sides with neither and eventually going to their honored doom.  So my brother and I have decided to start a joint army, the Soul Drinkers.  We have both donated models and have more marines on the way to create them.  I personally love to kit bash and can't wait to make Graveus, Luko, Sarpedon, and even Iktinos, and of course Lygris.

The army is going to be an assault heavy, sticking with their theme of a boarding and fast orbital strike force.  Plan on seeing lots of Drop pods and Storm Raven's, Psykers and Tacticals and even the maligned assault marines.  I don't plan on making just a cool show piece army though and have thought a lot about how to play them.  I like the drop army and I think the Sentinels of Terra CT's will work very well with them, getting those twin linked bolter weapons be all I need.  So on to what we have made so far:

Imperial Guard Tactics: Carapace Armor

Now the imperial guard is not known for the quality of the armor it provides to guardsmen.  The standard issue cardboard seen as good enough, but for some there is the ability to take carapace armor.  I personally love carapace armor, and like the idea of my elite shock troops going into the fight and standing a small chance of surviving.  Its small but they at least have a chance.  Now I have visited some forums and for whatever reason, the general consensus among IG players is that carapace armor is worthless.  I completely disagree.  Is it over costed? Yes.  However the current meta makes it very useful and worth its points completely and here is why.  Ignores Cover.  With the rise of armies that can just ignore cover, the 4+ save means that many of those weapons that would just kill a regular guardsmen outright, now you have a chance of surviving.  Now yes there are helldrakes and other weapons that beat the 4+, but they autokill most things anyways so nothing you can do about that.  The big thing were this comes in is against small arms fire.  Boltguns, pulse rifles, flamers, shootas, etc.  The vast majority of small arms in the game have AP5, so now instead of just dying, you get an armor save.  This also comes even more into play against the armies that have abilities to ignore cover.

Imperial Guard Hobby: Basing

Okay I have been away for a while, but I have a very good reason.  So I have up till now had very few models that were actually based.  So starting late last week I began the project of completing my army's basing.  Above you can see my sentinels and my heavy weapons teams.  And a box of ground beef, but I didn't base that so its not important.  I went through each tray that I had, one at a time and worked my way through it.  I spent about 12 hours last sat on them.  After that I was burnt out, but not to fear, I made it through and completed them all.

New 40K Expansions

There are now going to be two new releases in the near future for 40K supplements.  The first is pretty simple, it adds a FOC slot for a single superheavy.  The other is a fortification supplement.  Now I admit I have mixed feelings about the super heavy supplement.  Personally think that is the reason Apoc exists and that is where it should stay.  But it is also something that I don't see as a huge issue as well.  The fortification one sounds nice and is kinda in the same boat as the super heavy one, its not really needed but isn't really a bad thing as well.  At first I heard about them and thought that it was going to far.  But then I realized that its not going to be a huge issue and here is why.

Imperial Guard Rumors: what they mean

Alright, there are some New IG rumors from Naftka that look very good, and also some I'm not so excited about.  Now most you are probably coming from faeit so I'm not going to just repeat what he said in the rumors.  The basic rundown is that new artillery kit with all missing artillery tanks, new tank kit (heresy era), plastic stormtroopers and veteran kits, maybe new heavy weapons kit as well.  As far as the rules and army itself, HQ is rumored to be changing drastically, losing multiple options and having to start with  Command Squad, then you can replace commander with commissar, psyker can be bought as additional adviser.  New rule mission objectives, some sort of special order that sgts can issue, most likely something along the lines of Sgt Bastone in the current dex.  Priests getting new rules to help them out. Same for techpriests.  Vendetta/valkyrie getting put into one unit, points increase and maybe losing squadron rules.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Slaanesh CSM/Deamons 1850pts





Alright I got a game in last night and was able to use some new tactics with my psykers, though sadly not against Tau.  I did play a beautiful Emperor's Children theamed Chaos Space Marines/Deamons army.  I sadly forgot to take pics, got caught up in the game and it was late so we tried to rush through it.  Suffice it to say that they were great looking and his converted Deamon Prince was awesome, lots of green stuff and if I catch his army again I will def take pics.  So we played 1850, had corners deployment and played big guns never tire, which meant nothing since neither of us had heavy support.  I won the roll off for deployment and there was no night fighting.

Veteran Players...Stop Whining

 

I am going to rant here a little bit.  I have been playing 40k off and on for over a decade.  I don't necessary consider myself a veteran player, but I guess I am a veteran 40ker.  Having started in 3rd edition and gone through the editions since then up till now, I have played with many different communities of players and 40kers.  I have moved around a lot, which is a blessing, I have had the privilege of being a part of multiple communities of gamers.  I have experienced good and bad, you have both no matter where you go.  But what bothers me the most, and to be fair they are on the internet the most, is the bitter whiny veteran players.  You know the type, the game so much better way back when, they haven't had a good codex since 3rd, GW price gouging!!!

Fighting the Tau!

Note the following is all theory hammer

So I have been thinking all week about different tactics to fight the Tau menace.  I learned a lot from the recent game and have quite a few tactics to try out.  In the near future I will post a full on anti-tau tactica, but for know I will share my recent epiphany.  If you have already come to the same conclusion and use this already, sweet you are ahead of me.

Tau are a tough nut to crack, we all know this.  They do have weaknesses however and a big one is that they have low leadership and initiative.  So while I was thinking about this I was looking through the rule book and was thinking about bringing some psykers.  And then I say psychic shriek, oh my, yes I want that.  Psychic shriek is a Ld based attack, so you roll 3D6 and minus your opponents Ld and they suffer the remaining number of wounds with no armor or cover saves.  Now this sounds ok, but then you have another unit in IG called the psyker battle squad, which has weaken reslove, ie lower targets ld by number of psykers.  Well now that just got mean.  So using this in conjunction with a primaris psyker with telapathy, namely the shriek, you can go around mind raping the Tau.

6th Edition: The Edition of Synergy

With all the talk about 6th edition and us being a little over a year into it, so many have said that it is the edition of shooting and that shooting armies are king.  Well I disagree, and I notice the selective memories that people seem to have about 5th when they are comparing it to 6th.  For one it was very shooty as well and as many are aware, IG was king for quite a while in that era.  Shooting was certainly a major factor in 5th.  The rules for 5th were more simple and streamlined, and vehicles were very strong.  This led to limited ways to play and options to use, so armies tended to rely on certain methods to win.  This led to an edition of specialist armies.  All Assault armies, Mech Melta Vets, biker nobs, and many others.  The point being 5th was no less shooty just that it did it in a different way.

Sniper Rifles...I Want to Love Them

As the title would suggest, I want to love sniper rifles.  They should be really good, they have decent rules for them.  They are precision shots, rending, and pinning, all very good things.  But time and time again they have failed to truly do anything.  For the guard there are two main problems with sniper rifles, this having to do with how the weapons themselves work and how the stats of a guardsmen fit into that.  First sniper rifles have no BS modifiers, which is fine but with a BS3 army (a few BS4), your hitting 50/50.  Then you have to wound, which is always on a 4+, so agian 50/50, so if you have three sniper rifles, you are lucky if you even get one wound out of that shooting.  This becomes a numbers game and to use them effectively you need to get them in large numbers to get through this numbers guantlet.  Personally I think they should wound on a 3+, this is more realistic to the sniper rifle's effectiveness when it actually hits, plus since most are in the AP6 to - range, this won't upset the balance.  You would still get armor saves most of the time and rending wouldn't change.  I just feel that most of the time sniper rifles don't perform.

Battle Report: Imperial Guard vs Tau 1850!

Ok so I got in a game against the infamous Tau.  I have played a few games against the new Codex, but they were small and against inexperienced players with limited lists.  This was my first against fairly optimized list and an experienced opponent.  Apologize for lack of pictures, forgot to take them till the end.  As you can see not much survived till the end, the buildings across the board hide two fire warrior squads and though you can't see them there are remnants of my mortars and command squad below the icarus, as well as scattered guardsmen.

He got the first turn, I didn't seize.  We played hammer and anvil, mission the scouring, no night fighting.  So he deployed across the way, the missile sides with his Commander in the center.  He had an Ion Head behind them, the rail head was on top of the blast marker in the back.  Pathfinders deployed in the left and right buildings.  Riptide was in the open area in the left building, with a crisis team on the left board edge.  He had piranhas behind the right building. And had Kroot w/hound in reserve, Crisis team deep striking, and a firewarrior squad.

Rough Riders...who uses them?

Okay if you haven't been following my blog then you aren't aware that I am not a fan of rough riders.  This has nothing to do with their rules or how they play.  It is a fluff thing for me, they stopped riding horsies to battle after the poles tried to fight tanks with knights and it didn't work out so well for them.  So it's just stupid IMO that the imperium of man couldn't provide, idk bikes for their soldiers, I mean even a man powered one would be better, doesn't need food or crap everywhere.  But I digress.  The point of this article is a question.  Who among you out there use these guys?  How do you use them?  I have theory hammered these guys and they aren't horrible IMO, but the models are horrible and I just can't bring myself past the fluff part to actually field them.  We'll see though, my feudal world is calling and I may be able to bring them.

Cadian 438th 1850 Army List

Alrighty, so following my back story of my army here is what I am currently running, with minor tweaks sometimes but the core remains the same.  All guard no allies at 1850 pts

The Cadian 438th!

So I realized I have err'd, all this time I really haven't talked about my army and its history.  Sorry about that.  So I have been collecting Imperial Guard for over 10 years now and the above is only a small part and example of what I currently have.  As over a decade of collecting will do, my army is mostly uniform in colors, but I still have yet to finish basing.  Part of this is due to buying new models, selling old ones off and such.  Bur it is a labor of love, and the 20+ black guardsmen sitting in a pile waiting to be painted are giving me accusing stares, slowing going to get through them.  As I'm sure most of your armies, mine has grown as cash and game needs allowed.  But my infantry count still far exceeds my armor count, but it is getting up there slowly and one day I will have my Armored company, Mech company, and air assault company.  For now I will have to make do with an infantry army with a little support from everything else.